The “Socratic-plus” Approach: Increasing Peer Interaction in the LL.M. Classroom to Maximize the “American” Experience

In law school classrooms throughout the United States, individuals from many nations, almost all already certified as lawyers in their home countries, converge to become students once again and have an “American” educational experience through an LL.M. program. Rather than replicating the legal education these students have already experienced or clinging to the traditional Socratic approach these students likely expect, we espouse making the American law classroom an interactive “Socratic-plus” environment. In a “Socratic-plus” classroom, traditional Socratic exchange is complemented by modern references and interactive peer discussion groups to breathe life into the material. This approach allows international LL.M. students to maximize their American experience by stretching beyond their comfort zones. Though this Article describes an example of this approach within a doctrinal classroom, the method we explain can, and should, generally be tried in any LL.M. course, including legal writing. Adding interaction, small group discussion, modern references, and debate is always possible and can universally enhance the LL.M. experience.

The Role of U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Enforcing Intellectual Property Rights

Amid escalating trade tensions between the United States, Europe, and China, intellectual property (IP) enforcement has emerged as a central focus. IP rights are critical assets in the modern global economy—underpinning innovation, shaping markets, and forming the basis of national competitive advantage. As such, disputes over IP enforcement, including the importation of goods that violate national IP rights, have become high-stakes conflicts over economic sovereignty and technological leadership. While the spotlight in the recent trade wars has largely fallen on tariffs and industrial policy, this Article turns to a lesser known yet pivotal actor: United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

Beyond the Mirror Image Rule and the Battle of the Forms: A Term-by-Term Approach to Article 19 of the CISG

Article 19 of the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) could be described as the least well-drafted article, which calls for rectification through a novel interpretation. The Article adopts the mirror image rule of common law. That is, any discrepancy between a term of the offer and the reply prevents the formation of a contract and renders the reply, as a whole, a counteroffer. Why should a discrepancy of a single term annihilate the entire reply together with all the agreed terms? The irrationality of the rule becomes particularly evident when all terms necessary for performance are explicitly agreed upon without modification, and the only conflicting terms are buried in boilerplate and never negotiated. To address this anomaly, this Paper presents a “term-by-term interpretation” of Article 19. Under this interpretation, a discrepancy between a term of the offer and the reply affects only that particular term, preserving the other agreed-upon terms. Whether a contract is formed is determined by Article 14(1), which sets out the minimum requirements for contract formation. Thus, the term-by-term approach frees Article 19 from the unreasonableness associated with the mirror image rule. The approach marks a significant departure from the conventional interpretation. It also resolves the problems inherent in the battle of the forms. By analyzing boilerplate provisions on a term-by-term basis, this approach invalidates the arbitrary last shot rule, which holds that the boilerplate last sent as a whole governs the contract.

Artificial Intelligence: Finance, Law, and Control

Technology has been of significant importance in determining the growth and development of society throughout history with this impacting all areas of business, commerce, finance, and government. The field has been dominated by massive developments in such key areas as Information Technology and Data Technology (DataTech); Financial Technology (FinTech) and Regulatory Technology (RegTech), including cryptocurrencies (CoinTech) and stable coins (StableTech), as well as central bank digital currency (StateTech or CBDC Tech); distributed ledger technology (DLT), decentralised finance (DeFi); decentralised exchanges (DEXs); Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs); and decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs), among others. The background to all of this is referred to with the purpose of the Paper then being to examine the origin and evolution of Artificial Intelligence (AI) specifically within this process of technological evolution and advance in further detail with the related developments in Robotic Intelligence (RI) and human machine Synthetic Intelligence (SI). All key terms are defined and the emerging regulatory landscape across the world reviewed at this time. A separate highly original examination is conducted of such exciting new fields as AI and financial markets, which is referred to as ‘Artificial Financial Intelligence’ (AFI), and AI and the law and legal services, which is considered in terms of ‘Artificial Legal Intelligence’ (ALI). The origin, nature, benefits, and risks of each of these areas are examined in turn. A wider AI risk template is developed and outline control components outlined. This Paper then constructs two dedicated and targeted substantial new regulatory models to manage all forms of AI risks at the domestic and international levels as series of final comments and conclusions are drawn. The effect of all of this is to provide a highly original and insightful examination of these new key fields of social evolution and advance and to produce a set of integrated control models to attempt to prevent and manage any future major crisis or collapse.

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